{"id":46606,"date":"2022-01-21T23:32:24","date_gmt":"2022-01-21T23:32:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/armytimes\/uncategorized\/2022\/01\/21\/are-military-spouse-employment-programs-working\/"},"modified":"2026-08-08T07:48:48","modified_gmt":"2026-08-08T07:48:48","slug":"are-military-spouse-employment-programs-working","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/armytimes\/management\/pay-benefits\/2022\/01\/21\/are-military-spouse-employment-programs-working\/","title":{"rendered":"Are military spouse employment programs working?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

[Editor\u2019s Note: This story has been changed to reflect the for-profit status of the National Military Spouse Network and to include comments from DoD.]<\/i><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Are military spouse employment programs really helping these spouses<\/a> find jobs?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Despite huge expenditures on these efforts, more data about the effects the programs are having is needed, according to one group supporting the professional career and entrepreneurial goals of military spouses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cDespite more than a decade of efforts, the military spouse unemployment rate stubbornly remains over 20% pre-pandemic,\u201d said Sue Hoppin, founder and president of the National Military Spouse Network, during an event Jan. 19 announcing the release of the group\u2019s fourth annual white paper on spouse employment. NMSN is a for-profit company.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMany military families rely on two incomes to make ends meet. It\u2019s challenging to find jobs through moves and other transitions,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Since there hasn\u2019t been meaningful change in the spouse unemployment rate, there needs to be \u201ca full baseline assessment,\u201d according to the white paper. NMSN recommends that Defense Department<\/a> set this up \u2014 a way to help everyone involved in the effort measure the effectiveness of their programs, which includes not only federal agencies but also states, local governments, nongovernmental organizations and industry, Hoppin said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe process should be transparent. There needs to be a reporting requirement and they should give everyone more visibility into the progress of their programs, much as they do through the DoD State Liaison Office<\/a>,\u201d Hoppin said. That office has set up ways to measure states\u2019 progress on a number of quality-of-life issues, based on simple measures of that progress and milestones, she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The NMSN team noted that that \u201chundreds of millions of dollars\u201d have been spent by Congress, the Defense Department, nonprofit organizations and employers on programs and initiatives related to military spouse employment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Solutions for the military spouse dilemma will involve fine-tuning and adjusting programs to better meet the current needs of spouses, identifying gaps where programs are still needed, and getting rid of programs that don\u2019t work, Hoppin said. \u201cWe cannot be afraid to do this. We must increase employment and provide business opportunities for the nation\u2019s military spouses.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe still rely on anecdotal evidence that programs are working,\u201d the white paper stated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The call for better data is one of the network\u2019s five recommendations: \u201cAbove all else, we continue to believe that we can\u2019t fix what we don\u2019t measure,\u201d the NMSN paper states.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIf we ever hope to make significant and lasting change for military spouses on the issue of employment, we need to reinvigorate the same community effort that successfully turned the tide for veteran employment a decade ago,\u201d the NMSN team stated. Other advocates have pushed for tracking unemployment statistics for military spouses<\/a> similar to the tracking of veteran unemployment. Different organizations have stated various numbers for spouse unemployment over the years, using various methodologies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

NMSN researched 11 different spouse employment programs administered by DoD and other federal agencies and found that, of those, eight have no publicly available performance metrics, and three have limited information available.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For example, a DoD initiative, the Military Spouse Employment Partnership, had resulted in 544 partner employers hiring more than 200,000 military spouses in the past 10 years. While \u201cthis is no small feat,\u201d the paper states, \u201cif we are going to move the needle on military spouse employment and retention, we will need the full participation and support of all partner employers, including the federal government.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That also means more specific data to understand whether spouses were able to find employment consistent with their education and skills, and if they were able to retain their employment with that MSEP partner through permanent change of station moves. \u201cWe can\u2019t fully celebrate employment wins without data,\u201d NMSN noted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Defense officials, however, responded that the DoD does track spouses\u2019 usage and satisfaction of their programs. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThrough the Defense Department\u2019s Spouse Education and Career Opportunities Program, including the Military Spouse Employment Partnership, the My Career Advance Account Scholarship, and the SECO Career Counseling Center, the department uses several instruments to track program utilization and satisfaction,\u201d stated DoD spokeswoman Lisa Lawrence, in a response to Military Times. \u201cThis includes daily metrics and large studies, such as the Active Duty Spouse Survey that includes questions on MyCAA usage and barriers to education and employment,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Recently, DoD started two pilot programs to help military spouses increase their professional knowledge and access to remote work opportunities, Lawrence said. Spouses have access, at no cost, to Udemy, an online education platform. More than 3,000 spouses have requested access since the pilot began in June, 2021. Another initiative , providing access to FlexJobs, an online platform providing vetted, remote job openings across the U.S., has seen more than 1,100 spouse request the access. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe department is tracking usage and outcome data in these pilots to determine whether they should continue, and to inform future pilots aimed at bolstering military spouse employment,\u201d Lawrence said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In one program designed to increase the number of spouses hired by executive branch agencies through noncompetitive appointments, less than 1% of federal new hires were military spouses from fiscal 2011 through 2018, the NMSN report noted. The hiring authority was Executive Order 13473, signed in 2008.<\/p>\n\n\n\t